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Recently several experts have pooh-poohed the idea that certain words derive from acronyms, because the widespread use of such abbreviations arose only in the the second half of the twentieth century. But what is the earliest known genuine acronym?
Question
#63274. Asked by davejacobs. (Mar 09 06 9:43 AM)
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Baloo55th
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Quite possibly ΙΧΘΥΣ - standing for Ιησους Χριστος Θεου Υιος Σωτηρ (Iesous CHristos THeou (h)Uios Soter: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour - on the surface meaning fish, which explains those fish-shaped signs on some cars. The word acronym itself is 20thC and dates from when there was a vast increase in the use of both abbreviations and acronyms. If you can pronounce it, it's an acronym; if you can't pronounce it, it's an initialism or abbreviation - or Polish! Some contain other elements of the words (Interpol being a fairly early one - and Gestapo another), Some don't - TWAIN being one (and standing for Thing Without An Interesting Name!). Very good info here:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym
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xfacilitatorx
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I would think that I.N.R.I. {the Latin Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum ("Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews").}, is older thanÉ×ÈÕÓ because É×ÈÕÓ was used After the crucifiction/ressurection as an "underground" indicator of a Christian meeting place.
I.N.R.I. was actually nailed to the cross at the crucifiction. I.N.R.I. was a slap in the face to CHRIST. It was a response to HIS answer to the Governor when HE was asked who HE was. Of course HIS answer was:
Matthew 27:11 - Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You have said so."
Yes?
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xfacilitatorx
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Do not know what happened to IXOYE in transcription, but that is what I typed.
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Baloo55th
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To be quite honest, I cheat with these foreign things. In OpenOffice Writer there is a nice Insert Special Characters thing and if I am going to need accents and funny letters, I open a new doc and then cut & paste. Typing straight in using ACSII code things doesn't always work because a lot of it isn't really standard, but doing it this way seems to work. But it doesn't actually say that INRI was nailed to the cross. It says the words were. The use of INRI came in with paintings of the scene where the artist wanted to make the identification clear. A quote from rapturechrist.com (not the sort of place I frequent):
Luke 23:38
And there was also a superscription written over him, in letters of Greek, and Roman, and Hebrew, 'This is the King of the Jews.'
John 19:19
And Pilate also wrote a title, and put [it] on the cross, and it was written, 'Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews;'
Pilate put a sign on the cross, above the head of Jesus. As we read from the bible, the sign was written in 3 languages: Greek, Latin and Hebrew.
(By the way, OpenOffice is free, backed by Sun Systems and competely compatible with MS OFFice all versions and has fewer problems.)
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mementoflash
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The Bible says that Pilate had the inscription "Jesus the Nazorean The King of the Jews" placed on the cross written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. (John 19:19-20)
I don't think the acronym INRI was used untill much later when people were designing images of the Crucifixtion.
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davejacobs
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É×ÈÕÓ is pronounced ichthis, so qualifies as an acronym and is almost certainly the first, unless Pythagoras or one of that crowd invented one.
But I wish people wouldn't malign Polish so much just because it has different spelling rules from English. I've found most languages can be pronounced perfectly easily once you have learned some simple rules and this applies to Polish and Welsh. What I find really hard to get my head (well tongue anyway) are Gaelic words.
I agree that INRI was a medieval invention, but my bible (Luke 23:38) says the words 'This is the King of the Jews.'were written in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, rather than Greek, Roman and Hebrew.
So another question, why was the Roman langusge called Latin?
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xfacilitatorx
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I was not there, so I do not know. I will find someone who was and ask them.
If one can not believe Genesis than how can one use the words from the NT as an arguement. It is ALL or NOTHING in my book.:-)
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soonappear
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"It's important to note that neither [ichthys: 2nd century CE, cabal 1646] of these acronyms are the origins of the word in question. Rather, those who coined the acronyms were being clever by using letters to form an existing word." Seroco.
http://www.wordorigins.org/errors.htm
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mementoflash
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The Romans called their language "Latina" not "Roman".
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Baloo55th
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Now hang on there... Genesis is another matter. That's an account written down a few hundred years before the event we're discussing, and combining at least two earlier sources (the Elohist's account and the Jahwist's account). The event in question has references to it in four partisan accounts, one of which was written by someone who was nowhere near the place (Luke), and no outside confirmation. I'm taking the description at face value for these purposes, and pointing out that the ΙΧΘΥΣ inscriptions are there in evidence to this day. Sure, the word ichthus was selected as a combination of an easily drawn image without any meaning to outsiders and a set of sounds that could have a meaning for insiders tailored to them. As is done today by many organisations who want an easier to say name than their full title. Apart from which, it is disputed (in Christian circles) as to what form of cross was used, or even whether a cross or a stake was used. Which is getting a bit far from Dave's question, I'm afraid.
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Baloo55th
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Getting back to the second question, Latin was one of the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages, along with oscan, Umbrian, and Sabine. Latin was spoken in Latium, which is in modern Latin (or Italian to give it a better known name) Lazio. Like in the football club, even? Rome happens to be in Latium, hence the name of the club. By the first century the last of the other languages, Oscan, was on the way out.
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lanfranco
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All quite fascinating.
Momento is correct that the INRI Titulus is a (comparatively) late development. The cross/crucifix was not used as a popular Christian symbol until the late 3rd century. You won't see the traditional crucifix in the early catacombs, for example, though there are some Greek and Coptic crosses of early date.
As for dave's second question about why the language of the Romans was called Latin: it was an Indo-European language, with Celtic, some Etruscan, and Greek influences, spoken in the region around earliest Rome (9th century BCE, maybe) called "Latium." Today, that region is called, in Modern Italian, "Lazio."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin
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davejacobs
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Isn't it amazing how wide a discussion can range when educated people get interested?
But to get back to the original question, are we agreed that we cannot think of an earlier acronym than
É×ÈÕÓ ?
Sorry if that comes out wrong, I just copied and pasted from Baloo's note. It looks fine before I send it.
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xfacilitatorx
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I think that Baloo had it correct the first time!
This is such a wonderful format to prompt one to venture down roads that one would not have thought to travel. All you Wonderbrains teach me so much! Thanks forever!
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